Mearsies Heili Bounces Back (29 page)

She seemed to sense my impatience, for she smiled and said, “I
thought you might be here to visit, but maybe not?”

“Oh, I would, except I got splatted here by the Chwahir. I
mean, on this continent,” I corrected when she looked puzzled. “I gotta get
home. You can send me, can’t you? You have plenty of magic.”

Spring said simply, “Of course. We can go to the Destination
right now.” Her high brow puckered slightly, then she touched my shoulder,
closing her eyes—and pulled her hand away with a snap. “Oh! No, no transfer.
That is, I could, but there lies a coldness between you and the world. A—a what
do the mages call it? A ward.”

“Oh no,” I muttered.

“I believe if I send you, you will go not where you wish,
but to a Destination appointed within the ward-form.”

Cold ickies tunneled through my veins. “No. Don’t want that.”
I remembered my imaginary nastygram-letter to Rel, and said, “Can you send a
message, at least?”

“Of course. That is, we do not know anyone in your part of
the world, but there is always the Scribe Guild. You probably know that they
relay messages anywhere there are scribes.”

For about one second my heart leaped, then I thought, yeah,
and if Kwenz really has taken over MH, who would see that message?

Spring looked unhappy, and I realized I’d wrapped my arms
round me, and was clutching at my own shoulders like it was sub-zero degrees in
her pretty bird sanctuary.

“Maybe messages aren’t a great idea. Because I don’t know
who’d see ‘em. So. I have to go the long way, eh?”

“We can happily give you travel wherewithal.” She opened her
hands. “At the least, for we are still in your debt.”

“No debt,” I said promptly. “Kids help kids. Especially
rulers. There are enough bignose adults practicing
Take the kiddie’s stuff
because you can, ha ha!
around. We have to band together.” I whooshed out a
sigh. “But I’d be glad of some cash, if it’s okay. I mean, enough to buy
passage on a ship.” I scowled at my dusty toes. “Except I don’t know anything
about ships. What if I pick one where they’re all nice, but as soon as we get
out in the water, they take my money and dump the kid overboard? I’ve only been
on one ship, and that was a p—”

I stopped on the word
pirate
, remembering Captain
Heraford of the
Tzasilia
—the name coming from an old legend about a mer
living among humans, Clair had said. Captain Heraford had invited us to come
back, only what was the name of that harbor again?

“Do you have a harbor where pirates land?” I asked.

Spring laughed. “Pirate ships don’t land here—not and find
any welcome!”

“Good pirates, I mean. What were they called? Privateers,” I
said stupidly. “Captain Heraford is a good pirate, because he only attacks the
Chwahir. And, you know, bad guys.” I felt even more stupid, just hearing an
adult scoff,
Oh, and who asked YOU who’s a bad guy and who’s not?

To my surprise she tipped her head, then sprang up. “I
think—I better ask Winter. She knows maritime things.”

She sped away, me pounding after, back through those arches
and then up into a tower where the wind was cooler. We emerged in a room with
almost no furniture, much less decoration, to discover Winter studying a very
old-looking scroll. She looked up and Spring repeated what I’d said.

Winter turned her serene, light gaze from Spring to me, then
said, “I don’t know anything about your Captain Heraford, but there are many
ships issued letters of marque by the Danarans across the border, if they
promise to attack the Chwahir. They are too small to have a navy, you see, and
the Chwahir are always trying to expand past their border.”

“Just like at home,” I snarled.

“These letters of marque—I do not know it’s such a good
idea,” she added soberly. “For many use that as an excuse for outright piracy,
flashing their letter of marque to escape the law if they are caught. Well,
that is another matter. If you do not wish to walk all the way to Danai—”

Danai. That was it. At the other end of a bunch of galloping,
if I remembered from the previous adventure—and maybe a magic transfer or two.

My heart sank.

“There is an establishment at Laupgren Harbor where the
privateers meet and arrange trade, the ones who really do fight against Chwahir
incursions. You might ask there, at the
Bowsprit
, about your captain.”

“That’s exactly what I will do,” I said, relieved to have
somewhere closer to go—something to do. Anything that might lead me to home.

I was invited to stay as long as I liked, but my worries
about home—about what could be happening, and no one to tell me—caused me to
turn down the invitation, and leave again, this time for the Laupgren Harbor,
which was at Bermund’s border at the mouth of the Margren River. We’d been
there before, when the shanty-town was built next to it, but we hadn’t bothered
asking the name.

My journey to the harbor was a big nothing in the sense of
adventure. Had my mood been less anxious about what I’d find—about home—I would
have enjoyed it thoroughly. But there were too many anxious ghosts biting my
heels—ghosts of my imaginings, not real ones, but that didn’t make me feel any
better.

o0o

Laupgren Harbor again.

I passed by the house where we’d stayed with all those kids.
I wondered if that girl who had been so nasty was still there. I didn’t want to
go searching.

I climbed up the narrow little zigzag streets with all the
little shops and eateries along them, built into the hills on either side of
the great river. There were a lot of tourists and traders; I couldn’t count the
number of languages I heard around me.

I did not let myself look at the harbor until I got high
enough up to see the entire thing. Then I followed a bunch of people out onto a
fenced terrace that I bet had served as a lookout point for ages, and peered
out under my hand. Clouds banded the sky, fuzzing the harbor with haze, but I
was sure I would recognize the
Tzasilia
instantly—that is, if I could
spot it in the middle of a forest of masts.

My hope leaked out leaving gloom. Big ships, little ones,
some going in, some warping out, many tied up not just at the docks but out in
what the sailors called the “roads” though of course there was no dirt in
sight. Little boats plied the waters between all the big ships, taking people
and goods in and out.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Of course some were hard to pick
out, but the longer I stood there the more definitely the conviction grew that
Captain Heraford was not there. Among all those ships there were very few long,
narrow craft with slanted masts, and not a single one with the figurehead of a
mer-girl with hands raised, as though casting a spell over the waters.

I stood against the railing above the noisy city, oblivious
to the smells of brine and old wood mixing with the spicy scents of the world’s
cookery. My throat tightened and tears blurred the haze, smearing the masts
into a long smudge of brown.

For the first time since Clair had brought me to this
wonderful world, I felt
alone
. No friends. No enemies—that would be
counted as a plus, I thought hastily, and hustled right back to the self-pity.

But then I had to face the fact that I was feeling sorry for
myself, which is okay if you don’t have to figure out where you’re going to
eat, or sleep for the night. I looked around and sighed. There had been a time
when I was little, now mostly forgotten, when I had longed to be able to travel
without being in danger just for being a kid. I could do that now. I could go
anywhere in this world, and I’d find adventure.

But what about Mearsies Heili? Rel loomed in my mind,
scoffing.
What can a ten-year-old do?

A kid can find allies
, I told those skeptical dark
eyes.

That means, don’t just stand there. Do something.

All right, so I would ask about Captain Heraford at the
Bowsprit
,
and if I drew a blank, I’d just walk on to Danai, however long it would take.

o0o

The
Bowsprit
turned out to be an inn at the far end
of the harbor, built on a ridge overlooking an old pier. The place was kind of
like a weather-beaten finger built along the ridge, with round windows like the
scuttles on ships; in the main office a lot of rough-looking nautical people
came and went.

I oozed up to the counter, where I discovered a girl my own
age on duty. “Lookin’ fer a room?” she asked.

“Maybe. More like information first. I’m looking for Captain
Heraford of the
Tzasilia
.” I was about to add ‘if you’ve ever heard of
him or it’ but to my surprise, the kid pulled a face. “You know, that sounds
familiar. Stay put.”

She ran back into another room. I stood at the counter
between two conversations in different languages. Then my prentice clerk came
back out. “Who are you and where from?”

“I’m Cherene Jennet Sherwood from Mearsies Heili,” I said.

The girl shrugged. “Well, there was no name we were to ask
for. Just the country, Mearsies Heili. We could tell anyone from there his
latest posted cruise or arrival.”

“Which is?”

“He gave next week as the date he’s expecting to anchor here
again,” the clerk-prentice said.

I grinned, then thought about food and board. Of course
there was always wanding, but I thought of that awful girl, and decided I’d
rather do something else. “Say, where can somebody my age get a job besides
wanding?”

“That’s easy.” The clerk pointed through the window. “Go
down to the dock master’s, the big building behind the quay at Pier One. They
have a list of who needs what done. There are always jobs, if you don’t mind
running errands, stocking, mending nets and the like.”

I thanked her, sped out, and discovered a gaggle of kids
more or less my age lurking around the dock master’s. I signed up, stated my
skills—glad that Captain Heraford had taught us plenty on my previous sea
voyage—and before dark I had a job mending nets. I was paid by the piece, so if
I worked quickly, I had plenty of time to explore along the quay and look at
all the ships coming and going. At night, a lot of the kids met near one of the
warehouses, sat on barrels, and told stories—some true, some not. I did most of
my net mending while listening. I made up stories, and though I finally got the
courage to tell some of my real adventures, but I didn’t admit that I’d been in
them, just used another name. That was in case Certain Baggies somehow heard
where I was, and loomed up just to scoff and sneer. Oh, I’d managed to turn Rel
into a monster even worse than Shnit by now, I’d been mentally arguing with him
so much.

Anyway, aside from my usual fuming about Rel, and the
occasional middle-of-the-night worries about home, the week sped by more or
less pleasantly.

By then I knew who was where among the ships—and where
newcomers were likely to anchor.

So on the day when the familiar three-master
Tzasilia
sailed into the harbor I was there watching through a hired glass, and when the
captain’s boat reached the dock, I hardly let Captain Heraford get his feet
onto the dock before I was tugging at his long coat.

For a moment we stared at one another: him a tallish man,
sun-browned from life on the sea, brown-haired, sharp-eyed; me an anonymous kid
with blue-black hair braided back, scruffy clothes, bare feet.

“I know that blue-eyed glare. Do I not?” he asked, grinning
down at me.

I hopped impatiently from foot to foot and blurted, “It’s
me! CJ! I’m in the log!”

Captain Heraford bowed. “Your highness?”

“Ugh!” I bellowed, almost tearful. “Don’t
do
that!”

Captain Heraford realized then that I was far too upset for
a little gentle teasing. “Forgive me,” he said, serious again. “You are here
because?”

I let out a huge sigh, and if it shuddered a little, the
captain pretended not to notice. “I’m here alone. Something’s happened at home,
and I got bucketed away,  and—”

“I know.” He looked serious. “That is, I know at least where
one of you is, and rumors about the rest. We will talk as long as you like, as
soon as I get these matters seen to.” He waved at the waiting privateers, dock
officials, and what looked like outright pirates, all staring.

“Will you take me home?”

Captain Heraford scratched his head, then said under his
breath, “I never thought I’d be asked to rescue a kingdom that once—”

I was so indignant that I cut him off before he finished. “I
asked you to take me home,” I grundged. “Rescuing the kingdom is
my
job.”

Captain Heraford looked at me as if I’d sprouted tentacles
out of my nose, then said somewhat wryly, “If you want to go aboard and wait
for me, there’s the boat.”

He turned away, and walked back up the pier with his group.
I heard the words “Chwahir” and “convoy” before all their voices dwindled into
mutters, drowned by the sounds of the sea.

I looked at the rowboat, and the teenage girl sitting in it.

She said, “Coming? I can take you out and get back in plenty
of time before he wants the boat.” She leaned her forearms on the oars. “Did
you know that your queen’s cousin is a prisoner in Narad?”

Puddlenose!

“We’re going to rescue him,” she added with a triumph that I
found thoroughly proper and deserving.

I hopped down into the boat.

I plopped onto the bench behind the table in Captain
Heraford’s cabin, there in the stern of the
Tzasilia
. Sun-spangles
danced on the water below the open windows, sending glow worms of reflected
light wriggling across the low ceiling and the curving walls that I’d learned
were called bulkheads. The table was nailed right onto the deck.

Happiness had given me plenty of energy, despite waking up
before dawn in order to climb the hill before the tide came in so I could
watch, as I had for three days. Now it was just before sunset, the sinking sun
making that golden path of light over the ripples. The captain’s business had
taken longer than he’d planned for, then a sudden thunderstorm had swept
through, keeping boats from rowing around much.